War crimes indictee Dragan Vasiljkovic to remain in custody

War crimes indictee Dragan Vasiljkovic aka Captain Dragan will remain in custody for the next month because he is a flight risk, the Split County Court decided on Wednesday, extending Vasiljkovic's detention for the third time.

Vasiljkovic is charged with war crimes against prisoners of war and civilians.

The Split County Court previously turned down his request to be released on HRK 5 million bail.

Vasiljkovic, former commander of a special purposes unit within Serb paramilitary forces, is suspected of violating the Geneva Conventions by torturing and killing Croatian prisoners of war in a prison in Knin in June and July 1991 and in Bruska near Benkovac in February 1993.

He is also suspected of planning, in July 1991 in Glina, in agreement with the commander of a Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) tank unit, an attack on the police station in Glina, its suburb of Jukinac and the villages of Gornji Vidusevac and Donji Vidusevac. The prosecution alleges that during the attack civilian properties were damaged or destroyed, the local population was forced to flee their homes, their property was plundered and civilians were killed and wounded, including a foreign reporter.

Vasiljkovic, who was born in Belgrade and has Australian citizenship, was extradited from Australia to Croatia in July last year. He denies all the charges. After taking part in the Serb rebellion in Croatia, he returned to Australia where he lived under the name Daniel Snedden in Perth and worked as a golf instructor.

Vasiljkovic managed to delay his extradition in 2013 after an Australian judge granted an appeal in which he claimed that he had an unjust process in Australia due to procedural errors that were in contravention of the Geneva Convention. The Australian Supreme Court, however, rejected the appeal.

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